Book•
Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900
01 Jan 1998-
TL;DR: Moretti as mentioned in this paper explored the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel and found that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history, in a series of one hundred maps, alongside Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas.
Abstract: In a series of one hundred maps, Franco Moretti explores the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel. Balzac's Paris, Dickens's London and Scott's Scottish Lowlands are mapped, alongside the territories of Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas, in a path-breaking study which suggests that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history.
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TL;DR: A critical consensus has emerged regarding the function of the novel in the symbolic formation of national identity in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in particular, the influential role played in that formation by Walter Scott's Waverley novels.
Abstract: Over the last few years, something like a critical consensus has emerged regarding the function of the novel in the symbolic formation of national identity in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in particular, the influential role played in that formation by Walter Scott's Waverley novels. The consensus takes its cue from Benedict Anderson's account of the novel as one of the major cultural institutions that produces the \"imagined community\" of the modern nation. According to Anderson, the novel synchronizes the subjectivity of its readers with secular history and a calendrical order of \"homogeneous, empty time,\" by representing a temporal simultaneity across the diverse spaces and populations of the national territory.1 This imaginary standardization marches with the projects of political, legal, and economic rationalization that constitute modernization in other domains. The ideological power of Scott's novels, following this account, lies in their explicit representation of modernization as a complex, overdetermined historical process, in which a set of political, legal, economic, and cultural transformations bear together on an inevitable outcome: here and now, the only real world, the commerce-based
16 citations
Dissertation•
09 Dec 2009
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an alternative approach to the culturally specific readings of past hotel studies; by contrast, it will draw on two alternate readings of the space: those which are concerned with the geographical and with the sociological make-up of the hotel, and provide a framework for discussing novels from the realist tradition through to post-modern examples of spatial exploration.
Abstract: The metropolitan hotel is a rich space for exploration in hotel fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to its interesting connection with both the city and the home, and its positive and negative effects on the individual. Using spatial theory as a foundation for understanding how the hotel functions, and drawing on theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Edward D. Soja, Fredric Jameson, Yi-fu Tuan and David Harvey, this thesis offers an alternative approach to the culturally specific readings of past hotel studies; by contrast, it will draw on two alternate readings of the space: those which are concerned with the geographical and with the sociological make-up of the hotel. The ambition behind this thesis is to provide a framework for discussing novels from the realist tradition through to post-modern examples of spatial exploration.
A selection of works will be studied, including: Elizabeth Bowen, The Hotel, Henry Green, Party Going, Arnold Bennett, Imperial Palace and Grand Babylon Hotel, Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled and Ali Smith, Hotel World. These writers are linked through the particular use they make of the hotel and the creation of spatial identity in their novels. Spatial identity in turn arises through an awareness of the power of space, and its variable effect on an individual’s identity. This thesis begins by examining past hotel research, which centred on late nineteenth-century novels by Henry James and Edith Wharton. It then introduces the theoretical studies that have informed the current thesis. Before moving onto the two central chapters, which examine the geography and sociology of space, it includes a brief ‘interlude’ on Richard Whiteing’s No. 5 John Street, a work which introduces many of the themes central to this thesis. The central argument considers the agency or power of the hotel space, a concept which has been generally overlooked in criticism. The power of space in hotel fiction is exhibited in its capacity to alter events and emotions and identities in general. In this view landscape, traditionally considered two-dimensional, is no longer flat, but can be rather seen as a multifarious ‘character’ in its own right. This conception of the spatial environment of the hotel encapsulates what it means to function in the modern urban environment.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the interpretation of the revolutionary situations of 1848 in light of recent debates on interconnectivity in history and propose the concept of transurban interconnectivities.
Abstract: This essay discusses the interpretation of the revolutionary situations of 1848 in light of recent debates on interconnectivity in history. The concept of transurban interconnectivities is proposed as the most precise concept to capture the nature of interconnectivity in 1848. It is argued that political models circulating on a European scale at the time provided the ‘knowledge resources’ that were appropriated by urban political activists across Europe. These circulating resources were appropriated by political activists as means of political mobilisation in their particular local urban context. It is argued that circulating political communication accounts for similarities with respect to political agenda, organisational form and political repertoire evident in urban settings across Europe. This argument is supported by a series of examples of local organisation and local appropriations of liberalism, radicalism and nationalism in 1848. In the concluding paragraph, the limitations of the notion of urban...
16 citations
TL;DR: A design experiment attempting to create a locative literary system which allows users in an urban environment to listen to literary texts which talk about the very places they find themselves in, and to write and share their own place-bound texts through the system.
Abstract: This article presents a design experiment attempting to create a locative literary system, which allows users in an urban environment to listen to literary texts which talk about the very places they find themselves in, and to write and share their own place-bound texts through the system. The methodological approach is an attempted implementation of the proposed scholarly category of humanist interventions, answering a need to bridge the interdisciplinary gap between humanistic scholarship and digital design. Following an analysis of the potential benefits of providing a system which enables active exploration of the relationship between literary texts and the places they talk about, the practical process of designing a prototype for this system is explained. The outcomes of initial user experiences indicate that the system has a high potential to work as a creative tool for interested users; however, flaws in the system also prevent this potential from having been fully realised so far. These observatio...
16 citations